Communication systems or computer aided telephony systems are examples of data-processing systems in which a series of automated voice menus prompt a caller or user to press the selective keys on their telephone to achieve a number of purposes. For example the purposes may be to obtain banking services or other financial services, billing queries, assistance or other support services.
A caller is usually presented with a number of fixed voice menu options presented by a voice application that represents a first layer of options in a tree of voice menu options that, by appropriate selection, will lead the caller to the required assistance or other service automatically, that is, without human intervention. In essence, each layer of voice menu options aims to discover in a progressive manner a caller's intention. Alternatively, the various layers of voice menu options may lead the caller to a human assistant, which has the advantage of providing the human assistant with information relating to the caller's intention or reason for the call in preparation for meeting the caller's needs.
It will be appreciated that in either circumstance the voice menu options presented are fixed, that is, a standard voice application is created to deal with all queries regardless of any a priori knowledge. It will be appreciated that traversing such a standard voice application can be time-consuming and even frustrating for the caller.
It is an object of embodiments of the present invention to at least mitigate one or more of the problems of the prior art.